Posts Tagged ‘Grid Parity’

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Tony Seba, the Stanford Professor with 20+ years of solid operating experience in fast growing clean tech companies. He was the vice president, corporate development at “Utility Scale Solar, Inc.” where he helped the company grow from the garage-stage through growth strategy, fundraising, business development with plant developers and partners. He was the founder and CEO of PrintNation.com (a B2B ecommerce site which he established as the undisputed leader in its market segment, winning much top industry awards as the Upside Hot 100 and the Forbes.com B2B ‘Best of the Web.’ Seba led two venture capital rounds raising more than $31 million in funding from well-known venture funds, hired a complete management team, 100+ employees, and managed the development of strategic partnerships with some of the world’s top companies.

Tony Seba demonstrates “Why do smart people at smart organizations consistently fail to anticipate or lead market disruptions?” He helps us to understand why so-called experts tend not to be able to correctly make correct forecast about technological disruption. In these cases, the Clean Disruption of Energy & Transportation:

Technology Convergence: disruption caused by the convergence of several technologies, enabling functionalities that may not have existed in the past (2007 for smartphone.

Exponential Market Adoption S-Curve: upon reaching the tipping point, technological disruption would grow exponentially and continue to grow at a steeper rate (growing even more quickly). This phenomenon was/is observed in technologies such as colored tv, smartphones, tablet, and will also be true in solar and EV.

Business Model Innovation: examples such as Uber (started in 2009 and now has more bookings than whole taxi industry in USA), Didi, Lyft, Ola, AirBnb…

Five technologies (below), plus business model innovation will be disrupting, within the coming decade, all of the energy and transportation system as we know it for purely economic reasons. It will be the: Clean Disruption of Energy & Transportation:

Batteries: Li-on battery costs dropping exponentially (cost dropped 14% per year between 1995 – 2010, 16% per year between 2010 – 2014, due to other industries’ (IT, Electronics, Automotive, and Energy) investment). With more investments continue to come from BYD, Foxconn, Samsung SDI, Dyson, and 12+ megafactories coming online by 2020, cost curve, cost will continues to drop about 20% after 2014. Furthermore, the grid works like a just-in-time supply chain without inventory. This inefficient use of assets designed for peak is waiting to be disrupted. NextEra Energy CEO Jim Robo commented, “Post 2020 there may never be another peaker built in the U.S.” In Feb. 2017, Southern California Edison contracted the system to meet PEAK Demand needs using battery technology following its Alyson Canyon natural gas leaks. Tesla’s 80 MWh system was built in 88 days that no natural gas peaker could have competed. There are also business model innovation that treats storage as a service, reducing utility bills by 10%. By 2020, it will cost American families about $1.2 per day for a full day of electricity storage. People will do this because it will save people money, purely for economics.

Electric Vehicles (EV’s): Consumer reports gave Tesla Model S an evaluation of 103 out of possible 100 for Car of the Year in 2013. Electric Vehicle (EV) is 5x more energy efficient than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). It is also cheaper to transmit/distribute electrons than atoms, therefore EVs are 10x cheaper to charge/fuel than ICE vehicles. EVs are also cheaper to maintain (ICE vehicles have 2000+ moving parts whereas EVs have 18-20 moving parts). EVs lifetime is about 2.5x greater than ICE vehicles. In 2017, GM’s Chevy Bolt EV has 200-mile range and costs $37,500 whereas Tesla Model 3 has 215-mile range and costs $35,000. By 2025, every new vehicles will be of EV.

Autonomous Vehicles: the biggest disrupter. The World’s first self-driving taxi debuted in Singapore in 2016. Uber’s self-driving fleet arrived in Pittsburgh in August of 2016. 33 corporations are investing billions and working on autonomous vehicles. Tesla also announced that by the end of 2017, all Tesla vehicles can go from CA to NY without needing human controls (level 3). Elon Musk also said that Tesla will be able to transition to level 5 (fully self-driving, no pedals nor steering wheel) in 2019. Two technologies making autonomous vehicles possible: 1. LIDAR (laser+radar) price dropped from about $70,000 in 2012 to $1,000 in 2014, and $250 in 2016, and soon to be $90. 2. Super computing power priced at $46 million in 2000, $59 in 2016. These technologies are improving at 1,000x in the next 8 years. Open source is also responsible much of the growth in the future.

Ride-Hailing:“Transportation As A Service” initiated from a think tank founded by Tony Seba, a disruption of transportation. Reason behind this concept: most American family spend about $10,000 to own and use a car per year that is only used about 4% of the time. Disruption: 1. electric vehicles 2. self-driving 3. ride-hailing. These are convergence of multiple business and technology models. The day the regulatory agency approves the autonomous vehicle is the day when the cost of per mile transport will be 10x cheaper for transport as a service than it is to own a car for consumers. Consumers will be giving up car ownership and henceforth the collapse of ownership of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles and IO (individual ownership) of vehicles. Therefore there will be 80% fewer cars on the road, parking lots, and insurance for vehicles. Annual demand for new vehicles will also decrease by 70% and demand for oil will also decrease by 2021 (around the time when oil costs about $25 per barrel).

Solar: example: Denmark’s Copenhagen International School generating 50% of its power need from solar (even the side of the building is part of this solar power plant). Solar PV cost dropped from $100./W in 1970’s to $0.33/W now. This is about 303x improvement. Globally, solar installations have doubled every 2 years since 2000. At the time of Tony Seba’s presentation, solar represented 1.5% of the power generation (it is now about 2%). If we use the 1.5% to calculate, at the doubling rate every 2 years (1.5%, 3%, 6%, 12%, 24%, 48%, 96%), it would only take 6-7 doublings (or 12-14 years) to reach 100% of the world’s energy generation (around 2030). Since 1970’s, the price or cost all conventional resource-based energy sources (such as oil, natural gas, or coal) have gone up by 6x-16x while solar has gone down by 303x. The cost of solar will continue to drop. According to Deutsche Bank, solar will be below Grid Parity for 80% of the global market by the end of 2017, meaning 80% of the solar world market will be at or below utility rate. According to PWC, 69% of corporations (Apple, Facebook, etc.) are actively pursuing solar purchase because it makes economic sense to go solar. Solar growth rate will accelerate. By 2020, it is expected that the cost of rooftop solar will cost less than the cost of transmission, without any subsidy for solar. Central generation will be obsolete. There will be no other form of energy generation that will be cheaper than “solar+storage”. By 2020, it is expected that the solar growth rate will really take off. Utility scale solar will drop below 3 cents per kWh (nothing will be able to compete with solar at 3 cents per kWh). Solar at 5.8 cents per kWh is competitive with oil at $10 per barrel and gas at $5 per MMBtu. In 2016, solar costed: in Chile was at 2.91 cents per kWh (unsubsidized) & Dubai at 2.99 cents per kWh. In 2016 Dubai PPA at 2.42 cents per kWh (unsubsidized). Tucson Electric has just announced that Solar+Storage PPA at 4.5 cents per kWh. It no longer makes sense to build peaker plants when solar generation costs so much less. Distributed solar, due to economics, will make sense and will become the rule. In Australia, 25% of the homes are already using solar (it costs 12 cents for transmission while solar cost 7 cents to generate in Australia)

Economics is already here: Unsubsidized Solar & Autonomous EVs are No Longer the Transition but Disruption For Our Energy & Transportatioin! Tipping point will be around 2020.

Besides pure economics, think of the: decrease in pollution, slowing in climate change, decrease in international conflicts, and increase in local job opportunities as a result of these disruptions! Bravo For Clean Disruptions!

Dear Friends, Visitors/Viewers/Readers,

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

This is a repost from one of our sister publication, Windermere Sun, below:

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

A terrific presentation by Tony Seba, Instructor in Entrepreneurship, Disruption, and Clean Energy, on explanation for Why Current Energy & Transportation Will be Obsolete by 2030 should not be missed by any one interested in present and future trend! It was presented as the keynote at the Swebank Nordic Energy Summit in Oslo, Norway, on March 17th, 2016. It is based on the book “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation“, asserting that four technology categories will disrupt energy and transportation by: 1. Battery/Energy Storage 2. Electric Vehicles 3. Self-Driving Vehicles 4. Solar Energy.

The outcome of the Clean Disruption is such that by 2030:

All new vehicles will be electric

All new vehicles will be autonomous (self driving)

Oil will be obsolete

Coal, natural gas, and nuclear will be obsolete

Individual car ownership will be obsolete

All new energy will be provided by solar (and wind)

EV (electrical vehicles are more energy efficient and more powerful than internal combustion engine, better performance, and fewer moving parts (therefore less maintenance)).

Ford and GM are becoming mobility services companies in addition to EV services. GM is also investing $half a billion into Lyft (Uber’s competitor) and just purchased $1 billion worth of self driving cars company. Foxconn and various computer companies are also getting into EV market. EV (electrical vehicle) companies such as Nissan and Tesla are offering limited free EV charging networks. SV (self driving vehicle) Startup Volta is offering free EV charging in exchange for media rights at prime high-value properties. Ultimately, one may power one’s house with one’s car and vise versa. EV’s and SV’s are essentially Computer on Wheels and Power Plant on Wheel !About half of the world’s population are ready to receive SV’s (self driving vehicles)! About half of Uber rides are carpooling in San Francisco area. Parking spaces will become more efficiently utilized as power plants.

Solar energy has gone down in cost 200 times since 1970’s. Solar installations has doubled every 2 years since 1990’s. It will take 7 more doublings or 14 years before Solar Energy would become 100% of world’s energy. Since 1970’s, Solar PV has improved cost by three thousand times relative to most conventional forms of energy and its cost will continue to go down. Solar energy on roof tops, when unsubsidized, is just as cheap as conventional energy, that is what’s called the Grid Parity (which has already been reached in 47 states in the USA in 2016) and up to 80% of the global market by the end of 2017 (according to Deutsche Bank). The adoption curve of any technology throughout history has taken the form of S curve and will likely be the same for solar technology adoption. The tipping point for Solar to reach its full adoption, commented by Tony Seba, is what he calls the Solar God Parity, the Point of No Return regardless where one is anywhere on planet earth, the cost of producing energy through solar rooftop is cheaper than the cost of transmission. Mr. Seba anticipates the Solar God Parity will be reached by 2020, the point of disruption or tipping point. Utility scale solar in USA and elsewhere on earth, unsubsidized, has dropped to 5 cents/kWh in 2015 in Nevada and in Saudi Arabia at 4.9 cents/kWh. (consider: oil at 5.8 cents/kWh is equivalent to $10 per barrel). Cost of solar continues to drop. This is all happening right NOW!

Further interview with Tony Seba, below:

Can you believe it ?! In USA, we would only need 10,000 sq miles of solar to power the whole country, compared to U.S. oil and gas industry leasing 150,000 sq miles of land and water to pump oil and gas to produce one third of our energy needs. So, in USA, oil and gas industry is using 15 times as much area to generate one third as much energy produced by solar. In USA, we have up to 13,000 sq miles of parking space, so simply by placing solar canopies on all the parking spaces would generate more energy needs for the whole country for a year. Furthermore, converting just 10% of our parking lots to solar canopies would produce sufficient energy to power all of our electric vehicles in USA for a year. Yes, we’re looking forward to an exciting Clean Energy Future! It is important for policy makers to realize that they have the choice either to Lead or to Follow. If policy makers want to create jobs and wealth, it is necessary to lead rather than to follow. So, let’s vote for politicians who will lead and support clean and solar energy.

Here, in Windermere Sun, we look for ways to help our readers/viewers to be better prepared for the transition into our new Clean Energy Age. We will help you to find ways to reduce cost of living and develop new business models and formats in this Clean Energy Age through information and collaboration.

Grid Parity has developed system with the use of ultra-thin (5 mm) glass-glass bifacial modules especially for the applications of carports, patio roofs, or greenhouse roofs. These glass-glass modules are more aesthetically pleasing and with higher transparency than the conventional modules. The longevity and low maintenance are the factors that lead to extremely low levelized cost of energy ((LCOE) of this product. To find out more about this company and their products, click->GridParity.

In the rooftop module for carports,

GridParity.ag carport shading (credit: GridParity)

the universal aluminum frame system is used with a simple but extremely stable attachment method. Without the need to drill or weld, the installation can be carried out without any technical skills or special tools. The entire structure is made of anodized corrosion resistant aluminum. The connection parts are made of a special stainless steel with a high nickel content. The number of necessary connections is optimized, with 25 screws for the small carports and 50 screws for the large carports.

In the rooftop module for greenhouse/gardening or patio, such a module system may help to control the amount of sunlight coming through in addition to being able to help generate energy.

Fantastic news! I just found out yesterday (April 26, 2013) that ADEME (The French Environment and Energy Management Agency) has recommended France to triple its solar PV target from 5.4 GW (gigawatt) to 15 GW by 2020. As study by ADEME indicated that solar PV has the potential to reach grid parity in the coming years and therefore is an essential component for sustainable energy policies. France celebrated the added 1.08GW of PV capacity in 2012, represented by over 34,500 plants, according to French Ministry of Energy, Ecology, and Sustainable Development. Solar PV has the potential to not only solve our energy problem, but also to fight against climate change, to help create local jobs, improve local industrial development and economic prosperity, according to ADEME. ADEME recommends that France concentrate on installing large rooftop PV systems to boost installed capacity and support the domestic solar industry. One can see that ADEME is on the right track toward developing economic and technological solutions to speed up the deployment of solar PV in France. Examples of rooftoop PV, below:

Rooftop photovoltaic power station at Googleplex, California

rooftop pv panels in Kreuzberg, Berlin

Rooftop from the Chicago Center for Green Technology

Rooftop Solar Panel array at the Kuppam i-Community Office

~have a bright and sunny day~

Gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker

Any of your comments and/or suggestions will be welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com

(below, please click when you see red links).
I came across this very informative clip of about an hour by Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Heinrich Boll Foundation. It took place during a Congressional briefing (March 12, 2012) which discussed the energy transition that occurred in Germany and how that compares, specifically with regard to the solar sector, to the United States. During this past decade, there had been tremendous growth and advances in opportunities, manufacturing efficiency, and deployment of this abundant renewable/solar resource from both sides of the Atlantic.

If you do not have an hour to view this clip, please allow me to make the summary of this talk available to you, via http://www.eesi.org/solar-power-trends-german-and-us-perspectives-12-mar-2012 : Over the last ten years, Germany has increased the share of electricity from renewable sources from five to over 20 percent, while creating more than 380,000 new jobs in this sector. Not-so-sunny Germany is known as a world leader in deploying solar power. In 2011 alone, more than 7,500 MW of photovoltaics (PV) were installed in Germany, as compared to 855 MW in U.S. installations during the same time period, which set a record U.S. pace. Investments in Germany as well as the United States have spurred manufacturing and job growth. Government policy has been a determining factor in both countries. The speakers addressed these topics as well as issues faced in building a future grid that is flexible, smart, and strong enough for a renewable energy economy.

Due to high cost of nuclear clean-up (4 billion Euro that will have to be paid by the tax payers), a near-Fukushima event in Germany, Fukushima incident, and wish of 90% of the German people, Germany currently has the goal of being completely weaned from the use of nuclear energy by 2022 and be able to achieve the use of 80% of power use from renewable sources by 2050. (Germany will be holding election next year. Its different political parties may have variation in its individual goals: Democratic Party aims for 75% in renewables by 2030 while Green party is aiming for 100% renewables by 2030).

There are several important points one may take away from this talk: Firstly, we cannot possibly discuss solar trends and government incentive policy without mentioning the Feed-In-Tariff (rather, effective Feed-In-Tariff). To help increase our understanding of effective Feed-In-Tariff, I would like to share various previous posts made available at http://sunisthefuture.net: April 17, 2012 post. There are also various video clips explaining Feed-In-Tariff from various parts of the world at sunisthefuture Youtube Channel. Effectively implemented Feed-In-Tariff had been responsible for Germany’s current position as the world leader in renewable energy, tremendous job creations, and economic growth. Secondly/lastly, this year, 2012, we have reached grid parity.Grid parity is the point at which means of generating electricity from solar energy produces power at a levelized cost that is equal to or less than the price of purchasing power from the grid. (wikipedia) Reaching grid parity is considered to be an important point in the development of new sources of power, the point at which it becomes a contender for widespread development without subsidy support. At this critical juncture, our German presenter Dr. Volker Quaschning made an important point during the 0:57:00-1:05:00th minutes of the presentation: if U.S. still does not do much to encourage U.S. solar market, the Chinese will soon be able to grow from the current 50% of the market share to 90-100% of the market share for solar technology (approximately 100-200 billion Euros per year). If U.S. still does not consider utilizing effective Feed-In-Tariff to encourage U.S. solar market now, we will soon be left behind in the dust, forever trailing other developed nations. I hope you will find the time, if not the whole video clip, to view at least parts of this video clip, below:

This past year, I’ve been spending a lot of my own time, energy, and effort in spreading the understanding of solar energy and effective Feed-In-Tariff. One frequent comment that I have heard, “Why should we follow the Germans?” There are two perspectives from which we may answer this question: it is for both ethical reason and selfish reason. It is our moral imperative to take part in transitioning into the renewable energy age (for a cleaner and safer environment/planet Earth). We simply have no choice, for fossil fuel is a finite resource. It is for our own economic benefit in terms of future job creations and economic growth that we should nurture the renewable and solar energy industry here in U.S. I understand that U.S. is a vast and diverse country, both its strength and weakness in terms of its ability in being able to change. It is time for us to put aside our differences and combine effort in asking our legislators and former Presidents to help President Obama in implementing the effective Feed-In-Tariff for Renewable Energy. Please visit http://sunisthefuture.net and sunisthefuture Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/sunisthefuture?feature=results_main for more on solar energy and Feed-In-Tariff for renewable energy and join us (Sunisthefuture Team at Kiva) at http://www.kiva.org/team/sunisthefuture to help entrepreneurs in U.S. and developing nations to establish/maintain businesses/projects in renewable energy/solar energy/recycling/energy efficiency via microfinance. For regardless who you are, if you are joining the Sunisthefuture Team at Kiva for the first time, you will be given free $25 to help another entrepreneur of your choosing in U.S. or a developing nation. This $25 will eventually be returned to help another entrepreneur (of your choosing). There is a time limit on these initial free $25 trials, so please act fast to get your free $25 trial. More details on this may be explained at http://www.kiva.org.